Interviews

Sajid Javid

If the Tories are bracing themselves for collateral damage in London in the May local elections, Sajid Javid is, at least for now, in no mood to turn on his well-polished brogues to make a run for it.

“Given where we are in the electoral cycle – the Conservatives have been in power for over seven years – the elections we face would be challenging for any party,” he says when we meet at his modest, book-lined office in the House of Commons [at the time of writing, Javid is the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government; he has since been promoted to Home Secretary after the departure of Amber Rudd]. “Of course, we would have liked to have done better in London in the General Election, but we learnt the lessons from that.”

Jeremy Corbyn – far from rubbing his hands with glee at the prospect of a resounding victory in the forthcoming elections – is, at the time of writing, trying to fight off widespread accusations of anti-Semitism. Javid has experienced prejudice at first hand and is in no mood to make allowances for the Labour leader.

“In any organisation, the culture comes from the top. Some of the appalling things we’ve seen and heard come from people claiming to be supporters of the Labour party. Its leadership must therefore take a zero tolerance stand and be unequivocal about the world’s oldest hatred.

“There is a rise in intolerance across the board. I received hate mail recently and it’s unpleasant. What felt worse is the co-ordination of these ‘punish a Muslim’ letters, sent to Muslim MPs. People in public life should expect a degree of anger directed at them, but not for who they are. It is very un-British.”

In an already acrimonious atmosphere in Westminster, Javid is under threat of an action for slander from the hard left Momentum group if he dares to repeat, without parliamentary privilege, the charge that they are “neo-fascist”. When I ask him if he is bothered about their response, he replies in a single word: “no”.

The 48-year-old former Deutsche Bank high-flyer is a cool customer, which is just as well because the stakes could not be higher for him. Headlines may come and go, but there is one big political problem that is not going to go away any time soon. As Communities Secretary, he knows that it is his job – often working in collaboration with the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan – to sort out the capital’s housing crisis.

“Housing across the country is our number one domestic priority and it’s not just mine, it’s the Prime Minister’s and the Chancellor’s. House prices have been outstripping average earnings during successive governments, and now we are at a point where nationally house prices are eight times earnings, and, in London, 15 times earnings, which is the worst there is in any major developed economy.”

Javid has identified three action points. “First, we need to see that more land is released in the right places across the country, but especially here in the capital. Second, we must make sure that we get those planning permissions to follow through a lot more quickly.

“And, third, we need a much more diversified market with an increase of smaller builders getting involved and using modern methods of construction. If you look around other cities in Europe, you will see they are much more likely to use factory build construction techniques.”

Javid wants, too, a more realistic approach to density. “Again, if you compare London to most other major European capitals, you will see that we are behind them in terms of density. You don’t feel, when you walk around those cities, like you are in Hong Kong, but they have made much better use of space. It should be possible to require builders to build more densely and to build upwards more frequently.”

It is not for Javid to micro-manage what happens in London and he won’t be drawn on areas that he would like to see developed, but he admits that, while he likes Sadiq Khan, it exasperates him that the Mayor is not more ambitious when it comes to the homes crisis.

“Sadiq came to power saying that he would boost house building here from 30,000 to 50,000 homes a year. In the event, in his first year in power, there was a 20 per cent decline in housing starts. When it came to affordable homes, the Greater London Authority in that first year didn’t make a start on a single affordable home for rent.”

He makes the point that Jeremy Corbyn was Khan’s choice to lead the Labour Party and he says his chosen leader’s unreconstructed brand of Socialism is impeding progress on housing. “Take the example of Claire Kober, who, as leader of Haringey Council, recognised there were some estates that hadn’t received any attention since the 1970s and she wanted to redevelop them with the private sector. Momentum and the hard left focused on that, and, as she will tell you herself, they kicked her out because of it. Sadiq backed not her, but the people who didn’t want redevelopment.”

Javid is no fan either of the rent controls that Corbyn advocates. “He is saying that if your rent is, say, £500 a week, he will pass a law that will make it £300 a week. History has shown this does not work. That is not just my opinion, it’s also the opinion of many homelessness charities.”

More alarmingly still, says Javid, is Corbyn’s talk of requisitioning empty buildings made for the super rich. “That is the road to madness. Even idle talk of doing that is scaring off investors. One of the things that make this country great is our respect for property rights. I agree that it is reasonable to expect someone who buys a home to live in it. If they are going to leave it empty, then that is clearly an issue and that is why we have introduced an empty homes tax and we have increased it recently. That is the clever way to deal with this.

“We also take the view that anyone who makes an investment in London should face a level playing field. We had a situation where overseas investors in property had an advantageous situation, particularly when it came to capital gains tax. We have addressed that.”

He has, however, no intention of pushing for an end to Stamp Duty. “What we have done here is to make the tax a lot fairer. For first time buyers – people buying homes of less than £300,000 – there is now no Stamp Duty.”

Last month, Javid also announced plans to make the house buying process smoother and tackle unprofessional and unqualified estate agents. “We will require agents to hold a qualification so that people are no longer at risk from a minority of ‘rogue agents’,” he says.

He insists that fairness is at the heart of his plans for housing, and he says a particular concern of his in this regard is escalating ground rents. “Go back 20 years or more – and I talk as someone who bought a flat in London then – the ground rent was peppercorn – a pound or even zero. Now you have ground rents of £500 and within 20 years or so they are running into thousands. We are looking to ban that and it will of course help a lot of Londoners.”

The former infrastructure tsar Lord Adonis told The London Magazine earlier this year that he had concerns about Brexit putting a strain on the cash available for planned infrastructure projects, such as the high-speed rail link HS2.

“I have no worries about that,” Javid counters. “I think all the commitments we have made – the same with the extra runway for Heathrow – are very much in place. Infrastructure is at the heart of our plans and that is actually why we introduced the Housing Infrastructure Fund, which the Chancellor doubled in the November budget to £5 billion. London is getting the lion’s share of that because it is has the greatest housing needs.”

Still, two issues on which emotions are running high – Grenfell Tower and Brexit – will undoubtedly be factors as Londoners go to the polls on 3 May. Of the Grenfell fire, he says that no situation he has ever had to confront in his career has been more painful. He is adamant that rehousing all the residents of the block is uppermost in his mind. At the time of writing, Javid says 34 have still to be found suitable accommodation. He pledges their needs will be met and that the victims will receive justice.

Of Brexit, the formerly vocal Remainer says it is important to accept the result. “The vast majority of us now do accept it. Some may not like it, but we have to get on with it and make it work. Our top priority has to be jobs and the economy. I am confident from what I have seen in Government and outside of it – talking to businesses – that we can come out of this with a good, comprehensive relationship with the EU and we will continue to back EU citizens who are doing jobs here.”